Gonzalez is going to win this primary, and thus a full term on the Court. King County ballot returns favor him by a colossal margin. But he won't win by a large margin. A good portion of this state voted Danielson. Why? Why did so many counties, primarily in the eastern part of the state, vote for an unqualified, delusional jackass to serve on our state's highest court?
Well, let's see if we can answer that question. They didn't get a printed voter's pamphlet this year, just a ballot with two names: a "Mexican"-sounding name, and a "white"-sounding name. And in that situation, all factors being equal, uninformed voters checked the box for Danielson. There was plenty of speculation that this would be the outcome. You want to tell me there was another reason? Nothing else exists, here in reality, to suggest that there was any other reason to vote for Bruce Danielson, except that no one really gives a shit about State Supreme Court races, and it's easier to check the box of the familiar than to check the box of the unfamiliar, regardless of fact or common sense. So much for taking your civic duty seriously, you awful morons.
How fucked up this that? I can't even begin to vent about it. I've already been dealing with four years of scared racists leaching out of the woodwork to sell their brand of ignorance, just because we have a mixed-race president. God forbid we should get through a state judicial election without glaring evidence of persistent racial bias. Congratulations to Justice Gonzalez on this well-deserved and bittersweet victory.
UPDATE: Even the Gonzalez campaign is acknowledging that "racially polarized voting" probably had something to do with a lot of votes for Danielson.
An old friend of mine called me out for using the term "awful morons" to describe Danielson voters. I feel like I should explain what was going through my head when I picked that particular verbiage. A couple years ago, me and the band were playing a show at the now-defunct Rolling Thunder Saloon in Odessa, WA. Odessa is located in Lincoln county, which went 65% in favor of Danielson. One of the opening acts was a black comedian. He started to tell a joke about Obama - a joke making fun of Obama, let me be clear - and suddently a bunch of white faces in the audience started to turn bright red. Eyeballs bulged and mouths spewed forth obscenity-laced tirades: Kenyan Muslim socialist and all that. If it wasn't such a pathetic display of overt racism, it might have been funny. I remember thinking to myself at the time, "what a bunch of awful morons." I am sure that if those people voted, they voted for Danielson.
